Freight
A flawed strategy for freight
A significant proportion of the billions that will be spent on HS2 could be used far more effectively by improving the rail infrastructure for freight, says Bill Goodwin
M
uch public discussion around HS2 has been to do with getting passengers from A to B – mainly Birmingham
to London and back again – about 20 minutes faster than is currently possible. The argument goes that this will somehow boost the economy but I have serious concerns over this.
As someone who operates on a daily
basis within the logistics sector, I am acutely aware of the major problems involved in moving goods around the UK – and the situation is getting worse. With port activity increasing, there is growing need to transport product to and from the ports. The trouble is, this need is currently being met by putting more transport on the road and building or widening motorways to accommodate it.
A significant proportion of the widely
talked about £50 billion that will be spent on HS2 could be used far more effectively by improving the rail infrastructure for freight transportation.
And yet, although there is talk about
HS2 freeing up more capacity for freight, politicians and organisations involved in the proposal have barely mentioned this, as if freight is an afterthought in the HS2 decision-making process and is a lucky spin-off to improving passenger services. This concept is wrong. Freight should be the main priority and passengers should come second – not, perhaps, a vote winner but infinitely more beneficial to the UK’s economy than moving people from an already speedy train to a slightly faster one. Interestingly, there are indeed claims
made that HS2 will increase the amount of freight carried on the rail network – but the language used suggests this is more by hope than design. Consider the phrasing used in evidence given by the Rail Freight Group (RFG) to the all-party parliamentary group on high speed rail capacity: ‘Though rail freight will not use HS2 directly, the capacity released by migration of passengers onto a new high speed line would at least mean more rail freight can be moved on the major north-south routes and the West Coast Main Line (WCML) in particular.’ Here, the whole emphasis is wrong. And are we really saying that by
encouraging people to get across the country quicker we will free up so much existing rail capacity that freight will have the capacity to support economic
Multi-exposure of four freight trains on WCML Page 76 December 2013
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